


a little more like knocking on your door

by summerstorm



Category: Pretty Little Liars (TV)
Genre: Awesome Ladies Ficathon, Character Study, Comment Fic, F/M, Flashback, Gen, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-26
Updated: 2010-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a vicious circle.</p><p>She'd charted it out once before, on a scrap of paper when she needed a break from studying but knew she'd feel guilty if she walked away from her desk. Back then she thought it was more like a row of curved arrows all gradually converging and pointing at the same place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little more like knocking on your door

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html?thread=3905173#t3905173) at [ineffort](http://ineffort.livejournal.com)'s Awesome Ladies ficathon.

It's a vicious circle.

She'd charted it out once before, on a scrap of paper when she needed a break from studying but knew she'd feel guilty if she walked away from her desk. Back then she thought it was more like a row of curved arrows all gradually converging and pointing at the same place. Melissa stood out, Melissa got the praise and the hot boyfriends, Melissa she was told to look up to.

And Spencer did. Honestly, it was genuine, and at first, when she was too young to harbor resentment, it was almost altruistic. She was set on working for what Melissa had, and it wasn't until Melissa left for college that Spencer's reactions to the constant comparisons shifted from striving for similarly great achievements to taking Melissa's away from her.

It wasn't as bad as it sounded, anyway. She was still a functional human being, and she wouldn't hurt her sister deliberately; they fought more often than they got along, and Melissa's moral compass was so flaky Spencer sometimes wondered if she followed one at all, but it wasn't always awful to be the bigger person.

Spencer wondered if that wasn't part of why she acted, wanted the way she did, if it wasn't another arrow to cram between the lines of ink.

And maybe wanting things she couldn't have wasn't about getting them but about having a sense of longing to drive her. Alison had told her that, sitting primly on Spencer's bed, mocking either Spencer, the school librarian, or psychologists everywhere.

"My other theory is you have really low self-esteem," she'd added, "so, like, if you already know you can't have something, you can't go get it and fail and feel bad."

"I'm fine," Spencer had said. Her self-esteem was normal -- maybe not as high as Alison's, but she was confident enough. Comfortable with the person she was, at least, for the most part. And she was fifteen; self-doubt was part of the teen package.

"Or both! It's probably both. They, like," and then she'd started making weird, constricting gestures with her fingers, "intersect and feed each other and stuff."

"Could we stop analyzing me? I'd like to just not think about it," Spencer had said, and Alison had lifted her hands and pouted until Spencer felt obligated to hit her with one of the scarves they'd been trying on with Spencer's new coat.

It was just a lot to draw in, not clean-cut at all; feelings never were.

But Wren hadn't happened before. Nobody'd taken anything when Spencer reached out to them. Nobody had given something back.

Wren does. Wren is engaged to her sister, but it doesn't feel like he's tied to her -- his mouth is soft and lovely and unapologetic and his arms are open to Spencer, completely unrepentant.

The drive, the want -- it's all gone, replaced by a strange backwards longing.

When Melissa cuts things off with him, Spencer realizes it's not only her crush that's faded -- the vindictiveness she's always tried to suppress is barely there anymore, just these traces of vague guilt and emptiness, because seeing Melissa hurt, no matter how well she tries to hide it, isn't satisfying. It's not what Spencer wanted.

And the problem is right there, she thinks, and the same problem she's encountered every time she wanted to change or change something about her life: she doesn't know what she wants, and there are no easy ways to find out.


End file.
